Theology vs Listening
While I was away at the AMIA Winter Conference I had a thought that has been with me since. The thought came at one of those random moments and, because it hasn’t left like so many others, I am giving it some space to process. The thought is something like this:
“Theology is for people who don’t hear God.”
I realize that this is somewhat of a provocative statement, but I think it has some merit. While I was in music school, most of us had heard plenty of music and even played some, but not many of us knew what we were doing. We would hear music and randomly determine if we liked it or not. So we were taught ear training and music theory (much like theology). After that time, I began to hear music and understand it for the first time. I couldn’t believe how much I missed. So it was the theory that taught me to listen, but if I already knewhow to listen, the theory wouldn’t have been useful. When Mozart or Bach wrote music, there was little in the way of written theory of music, much like the early spiritual fathers Abraham or even Enoch. Yet they were close to God and heard from him.
All of this is to say that I wonder if listening to God shouldn’t be preferable to knowing about God. I’ll probably be posting more about this but drop a comment if you have any thoughts.
